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Post by JW% on Feb 16, 2013 22:27:40 GMT -8
Brian did his best to swallow his sobbing when Ryan(who Brian only knew as "the guy in the red bandages") asked him what was wrong. Nothing was wrong! Yes, he was in pain... but it just felt like a skinned knee really... it hurt... oh it hurt... and the salt flat air and 'sand' getting into it didn't help, but Brian knew he should be able to handle that!
It's just... he was so tired... and he'd just gotten up. He felt sick, like all his muscles were on the verge of cramping up. And then when he couldn't get a drink... it had all been too much...
He tried to explain the stress to Ryan, but barely made a croaking sound before Ryan found someone more worthy of his attention. Brian wasn't sure he was relieved, or even more upset about that.
The other guy, the one in the blue bandages(Benjamin) came up holding a water bottle and offering for him to drink. Brian croaked his thanks hoarsely and putting his hand underneath the bottle rather than trying to grip it at all. Somehow he managed to balance it like that, as he brought it to his lips. He drained the whole bottle in one long drink.
"Thanks." Brian said, his voice still a bit hoarse, but doing much better. "Let's check on the others." He suggested, pulling himself to his feet, despite the ground feeling like it was on fire and burning every part of him that touched it.
There were still the green, black, and pink cylinders to check on after all...
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lovely corte
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Post by lovely corte on Feb 16, 2013 22:32:05 GMT -8
Benjamin nodded, walking haphazardly towards the remnants of the other pods. He clutched his side, feeling the bandages begin to unravel and peel away as the scab-like blotches all along his skin began to peel away, pouring blood and fresh skin to the fresh air.
Salt got into his eyes, and his feet ached as the ground baked his heels, and he just managed to get to the pod before her nearly tripped. He checked on it, the pink one.
He looked back at the boy, groaning.
"C-Check on the green one." Benjamin asked, before he attempted to lift the pink lid off with the innate abilities that they had been gifted.
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Post by JW% on Feb 16, 2013 22:54:00 GMT -8
The pink capsule had a girl in it. She was pretty small... could only have been about as old a Lyra really. Her head looked like it had been shaved smooth, despite the fact that everyone else, under their scabs, had stubble of hair growing back. More to the point however, her body was completely unblemished. Not a single scab or bloody spot on her.
She also wasn't breathing.
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Post by Penny Royals on Feb 16, 2013 22:59:38 GMT -8
Ryan, in all honesty, wasn't quite sure what to say to her. He sat beside her for a few minutes, mumbling in response to her shrieks, before he heaved himself to his feet again.
He was thirsty, and currently that greatly outweighed the pain.
The boy who had been first to get out of his tube had exploded his bottle, and along with a few other things of seeing them- like the other boy going over and lifting open one of the other cylinders- it seemed they were a bit stronger. Not to mention, he'd lifted Lyra with no work at all, which he was certain wasn't supposed to happen. So it was with much trepidation that he staggered to the box next to his cylinder, took a bottle of water, and twisted off the cap.
He was, however, clumsy anyway. About half the water actually got into his mouth, the rest ran down his body, drenching the bandages and wiping away the caustic salt. He let himself stop crying, let his raw voice rest. He took out one of the cookies from the box, and limped back over to Lyra.
Even now, she was still crying. It was agonizing to hear her scream- it was at the sort of pitch where it just grated against his brain and caused his temples to throb. He bit his lip, sitting back next to her, and broke the cookie in half, offering one side to her. He hoped that would maybe make her stop.
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Post by Fiery Firefly on Feb 16, 2013 23:13:17 GMT -8
Lyra stopped for a moment when he offered the cookie. It was a snickerdoodle... her favorite
The cookie broke into even smaller chunks as she took it in her hand. The blood from her hand got mixed into it and tainted the taste, but she could still taste the deliciousness, and made her feel nostalgia for when her mother made them.
Lyra was not going to cry again, she could tell it was getting on Ryan's nerves. Suddenly a breeze ran through the desert and she shivered.
"We're... if we don't get out of here before nightfall, we might freeze to death. I hear... during the nighttime it gets really cold in the desert"
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Post by Alastor on Feb 16, 2013 23:26:34 GMT -8
Austin took off all but his underwear as he entered the green chamber. After all, he rather liked the color green, and for that matter his clothes. Made as much sense to him to get in the color as it did to the others. The boy was rather bizarrely calm as the liquids filled the chamber, taking calm, slow breathes as it did. --- Pain. That's what filled they green bandaged boy's mind as soon as he stepped out of the pod, kneeling down and heaving out phlegm as soon as the air hit his lungs and wincing from the pain caused by the salt. The boy was dazed and confused, to say the very least. On top of this his everything felt ablaze in pain.
His vision was returning slowly, the blurs and blotches that surrounded him becoming more sharp as they became more vivid images of his surrounds. On the bright said, he thought, he wasn't alone.
"A-ah hell..." He groaned lowly as he finished heaving, staring at the ground still.
((Sorry if this isn't a very good post.))
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Post by JW% on Feb 16, 2013 23:34:01 GMT -8
"Hey... are you alright?" Brian asked the boy that came out of the green cylinder he had torn open, then realized just how stupid that sounded. Were ANY of them alright? Honestly?
"You... you should probably drink something." Brian suggested. "Be careful though... the plastic is really thin, you have to treat it lightly or the bottle breaks." Well, the bottled water and cookies were all generic brands he didn't recognize, if they had any branding on them at all.
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lovely corte
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Post by lovely corte on Feb 17, 2013 0:09:38 GMT -8
Benjamin leaned over into the pod, feeling stark sensations of pain as the scabs on his skin peeled away and onto the pod, splattering it in thick shades of red that tainted the rich pink of the pod in thick mauve shades that quickly turned to brown in the air.
He groaned, and leaned down into the pod and inspected the girl. She wasn't breathing.
He leaned in, and grabbed onto her arm, and pulled her towards him, before he hooked his arms under her arm pits and pulled her over the pod, and onto the ground, carefully laying her out.
He listened to her heartbeat for a second, before he called out.
"I need help!" He croaked.
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Post by JW% on Feb 17, 2013 0:15:00 GMT -8
Brian all but ran over to help Benjamin. "What is it? What's wrong?"
The girl, slightly pudgy but easily lifted out, was only as warm as the ambient air, feeling cold to Benjamins touch. She wasn't breathing. There was no heartbeat. Her condition also wasn't as advanced as theirs. She was still wearing her original skin, rather than growing a new, tougher, skin like the children who had lived were.
"Oh... oh no... is... is she dead?" Brian asked, horrified.
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Post by Fiery Firefly on Feb 17, 2013 0:18:59 GMT -8
As Lyra finished her cookie, she heard Ben's cry for help and looked in that direction. She gasped,
As she ran to Ben to answer his cry for help, she was reminded of The Little Mermaid of all things. Not the sanitized version for kids, but the real thing she had read a few years ago, where not only did the mermaid lose her voice she was cursed to whenever she'd walk have her feet feel like burning knives were being stabbed into them and bleed all over the place. As she felt those burning knives in her own feet, and was aware of the bloody foot prints she was leaving, she felt like that poor mermaid.
Any fairy tale allegory dissapeared from her brain as she approached the small lifeless girl that looked no older then herself, "She's... she's dead isn't she?" she asked Ben, tears beginning to well back up in her eyes.
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lovely corte
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Post by lovely corte on Feb 17, 2013 0:33:04 GMT -8
Benjamin sat on his knees, feeling his molted skin pull away and bleed out onto the ground, albeit the sense of urgency helped keep his attention on the girl.
He looked at the others, his eyes betraying his words. "S-She's fine... I-... I dunno'."
He leaned in close, and clamped his two bloodied fingers over her nostrils, and pressed his mouth over hers, creating a seal. He felt that the moment was awkward, given how young she was compared to him, but felt that there was nothing else he could do with just standing back.
He pumped breath from his lungs rapidly into hers, before he pulled away and pumped at her chest with two overlapping hands, shaking her body slightly, before he resumed to the mouth breathing.
He pulled away, and kept at it for a moment, his teeth gritted as he applied extra force and his eyes welling up slightly as he found himself unable to cope with not being able to revive the girl. Had she drowned? She didn't look as molted as the rest of them, maybe the machine had killed her half-way through the process, as he had noted the machine had knocked him out half-way through.
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mekasoundwave
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Post by mekasoundwave on Feb 17, 2013 0:35:42 GMT -8
Zephyrine stood cross armed as her capsule sealed shut. The sense of finality and inevitability scared her...but only a little. It wasn't until she felt her feet getting wet that she started getting wet that she felt worried. It felt like...well, not as thick as mud but not just water. It was almost a gel, really. As she looked down, she saw the fluid rise up past her shins, the coloration of her pod giving the illusion that it was an inky black. The impression of the darkness rising up and swallowing her was....troubling to say the least.
Zeph was more than a bit nervous as the dark passed over her legs entirely now...but she be damned if she let anyone see that...not that anyone probably could.
"Just relax, keep a stiff upper lip, and breathe normally," she thought...which got a bit difficult to do once it started getting up to her face. Before she knew it, Zeph floated in the murky dark ooze, comforted only by the fact that things couldn't get darker.
And then she blacked out.
One barely remembered nightmare of surgery and pain later, she awoke....in the dark yet again. In the dark and sore, to put it lightly. And naked. So, clearly, her situation had not improved any. After a few minutes of just lying there in pain, Zeph figured she'd better try and get out of....where ever she was. As she reached out, her hand pressed against something. Glass, it seemed. She was still in the test tube. A few pushes of increasing effort later, the door swinging open.
And now there was light. Bright, blinding light. Ouch. She shut her eyes and held a hand to block the light until she could see normally again. At which point she realized she was bald, bleeding all over and was naked except for black bandages wrapped over most of her torso. Lovely.
Slowly, she reached out for the edge of the cylinder to try and see outside. As she peered out into the desert she had found herself in, she let out a hoarse...sound. Apparently, she was new to this "talking" thing.
"Huuuhhh-hey!" she forced out of her mouth with a cough. "Anyone ther-Acchh!"
As she choked out her words, she hoped someone was there to answer...she really didn't feel like wasting her breath.
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Post by JW% on Feb 17, 2013 0:52:28 GMT -8
The girl in the pink bandages didn't respond. Her lungs barely inflated when Benjamin breathed into her. And then when he started pumping her chest Brian winced at the sound of bones cracking from the extra force Benjamin applied when he started to let his emotions control him. She'd already gone cold. She had apparently been dead before any of the rest of them had woken up.
"Hey! Not so rough! Hey!" Brian shouted at Benjamin. "Stop! CPR doesn't go like that!" Or did it? Brian had only taken the briefest of courses in it during school. He wasn't sure how CPR was supposed to go, just that there shouldn't have been a cracking sound when the sudden pressure was applied to the girls chest. "Stop!" Brian grabbed Benjamin and tried to pull him away from the little girl.
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Post by Fiery Firefly on Feb 17, 2013 0:55:45 GMT -8
Lyra shrieked as she heard the cracking noise "Stop it! You're hurting her!' she pleaded.
She realized how stupid that sounded. You couldn't hurt someone if they were dead.
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lovely corte
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Post by lovely corte on Feb 17, 2013 1:17:37 GMT -8
Benjamin resided to blocking out their attempts to stop him from continuing to apply pressure, punctures in the flesh pooling blood in his hands as he continued to pump at her chest.
It took a moment for the idea to register in his head that he was not only damaging the corpse, but that the girl was dead before he could of even have got to her. He stopped pumping for a moment, residing to hunch over in defeat and fight back tears of exasperation.
"I-..." Benjamin started, but didn't finish. He looked at the blood on his hands, before he rubbed them away onto his bandages, painting the light shades of blue in a deep brown.
"S-... She..." Benjamin began again, but barely even registered as he began to stand up, and looked at the corpse depressingly before he staggered after the girl in the other pod. He'd come back to the girl, but he decided that walking away as the due course, unable to look at the girls mangled corpse anymore, let alone register the fact that it was at his hands.
He sniffed, clearing his throat a bit and allowed tears to well up in his eyes, yet only slightly.
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Post by Fiery Firefly on Feb 17, 2013 10:07:19 GMT -8
As Ben left, Lyra stared at the mangled corpse... specifically at its face. She looked so peaceful in death like she wasn't really dead just in a deep sleep.
That could of been you... her evil subconcious whispered in her head Maybe it would of been better if it'd been you
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Post by Penny Royals on Feb 17, 2013 10:58:23 GMT -8
Ryan had followed Lyra, and if Benjamin hadn't started to perform CPR he probably would have. As Ben stood up, Ryan watched him go. He wanted to try to tell him it wasn't his fault... but after that scene, it may well have been.
So he sighed, and passed around the other side of Lyra, kneeling beside the girl. She wasn't much younger than him or Lyra- not much younger at all. She was maybe thirteen- but she looked closer to twelve. He heaved a sigh, and with a heavy heart began to lift her up, to go and place her in her tube. He was pretty sure that all of them wouldn't have felt... comfortable with a corpse staring out at them.
"That could have been any of us..." He whispered, apparently not realizing he was thinking aloud as he gripped the side of the tube. It was like a coffin... and for the girl in Pink, it was a coffin. "...I... I feel like I might be sick..."
So he stepped away from the coffin, one hand pressed to his mouth and the other crossed against his chest. He leaned against his own pod, and hoped that nothing else would go wrong.
Well, that is, until the black pod burst open, and the girl in that one stepped out, so everyone rushed to go and help her out of her pod, of course. It was... ironic, in a way, the juxtaposition of the death of one member, and the 'birth' of another.
"Be careful," He breathed to the new girl, and began to list off what they had all encountered so far: "You're very strong, the ground around here is salt, and there's nothing around for miles and miles. But if you're thirsty or hungry, there's boxes beside all of these... things... with some stuff in them..." He lifted a hand to his head, instinctively reaching back to rub the back of his neck where his hair faded into, and for a second in a daze wondered why his hair wasn't rubbing against his hand. Then he remembered that none of them had hair anymore, and felt pretty embarrassed. While looking around at each other, he found himself thinking out loud again. "Are we going to share names?"
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Post by mekasoundwave on Feb 17, 2013 11:48:19 GMT -8
As the boy in red bandages ran over to her pod, Zephyrine was relieved to know someone else was there. Wherever "there" happened to be. It wasn't quite clear to anyone, really. Regardless, she stepped out of the pod onto the salt flat. She instantly regretted it, because she was basically one big wound and was now surrounded by salt. But she was hungry and thirsty, so screw it.
She walked around to her little box and opened it up, sure enough, there was water and....what she assumed was some sort of food inside. The boy in red was asking a question on sharing names. Zephyrine wanted to answer with her full name, but as she tried to say "Zephyrine" she coughed and hacked midway through.
"Z," she said simply. It was the most she get out of her mouth. It would work for now, she needed something to drink desperately. Now if she could just open this bottle of water without crushing it.
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Post by Fiery Firefly on Feb 17, 2013 12:46:50 GMT -8
Lyra ran over to the black pod to investigate also. She was glad they found another girl, she wasn't sure if she could handle another boy looking at her when the majority of her bandages were now laying in the sand being swept away with the wind. It had occured to her when Ryan put the corpse back in, to disrobe it and use the bandages for herself, specially since there was no blood on them that could infect her with some sort of disease. But the idea made her feel like a disgusting human being, hell she barely felt like a human at all. Oz had been right about that part.
"Z? Thats... weird..." she muttered wrapping her arms around her chest. Even if the person was the same gender as her, it was awkward making introductions in this state of undress, "I'm... I'm Lyra. Which I guess is also kind of weird..."
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Post by JW% on Feb 17, 2013 16:04:46 GMT -8
Brian watched as the new girl was introduced. "I'm White." He said finally. He liked it better than 'junior' which is what his parents always called him, since his father was also named Brian. "He's Red, he's Blue, the guy back there is Green, she's Yellow..." Despite only having a bit of bandage still covering her lower torso. "You're Black, and she was Pink." Brian said. "There, we know each other." It felt a little better this way. Pink had been part of their group, one of them. So at least now they knew her by 'name'.
He didn't even notice that most of them were no longer leaving bloody footprints anymore. Their scabs were getting used to their movements and the bleeding was stopping. Black there still had some time to go, but everyone else was getting better. Either that... or maybe they were just going numb.
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lovely corte
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Post by lovely corte on Feb 17, 2013 17:36:26 GMT -8
Benjamin noticed that his feet, albeit scorched, no longer ached and left continuous blood trails, as the scabs began to peel away and the blood that covered his skin began to congeal and turn disgusting shades of brown.
He hung his head, and only looked at the girl as she climbed out of the pod. He scratched at his chest, noting the fact that his light blue bandages were stained shades of red, and just barely managed to cover his modesty, as well as his chest. He considered maybe offering his chest-bandages to the girl in Yellow in all sorts of stages of undress next to him, but voted against it. His were covered in blood, scabs and dirt.
"She had a name." Benjamin could only mutter, looking back at the coffin cross tube contraption, and scratched his chest.
"I-I'm... uh, Benjamin." He said, hesitating to put his hand out once he noticed that the motion caused scabs to pull off his skin. He made a note to remove all the scabs from his person during their endeavors in the night.
He separated from the group for a moment, to finally go rummaging through his box. He designed that rather than take an item at the time, but use the gifts bestowed, and ripped his box off completely, taking it over to the others.
He took out another water bottle, some sort of peach and grape combination. He didn't really know if he'd like it or not, and offered it to Brian, as well as a cookie, noting that the man had broken several water bottles before.
"H-Here, man." Benjamin said, before he noted his own thirst, and took a swig of some water that had the aftertaste of lemons in it, and really made Benjamin feel so much better about his environment. He remembered what the man said, noting that they would be put outside, and thought to himself that if they were only going to be here for a limited time, all they had to do was ration what they had.
He looked at the girl in black, and then to the others.
"Is that it? Is that all the pods?" He asked.
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Post by Fiery Firefly on Feb 17, 2013 19:09:21 GMT -8
"Yeah I'm more than a color, I'm a person. And she was too," Lyra said, " How about we call her something until we find out her real name... aren't roses kinda pinkish? We can call her Rose or something." she shrugged at the suggestion.
As she saw Benjamin take a drink she remembered her own thirst, "Can... I have some?"
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lovely corte
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Post by lovely corte on Feb 17, 2013 19:16:02 GMT -8
"Rose," Benjamin muttered, looking back at the pink pod and hanging his head, remembering how he had almost defiled the corpse, breaking bones and piercing the flesh.
He looked towards the girl in yellow again, Lyra, he remembered. He sighed, and nodded. He forced a smile, his lips cracking a bit and scabs peeling away, as he lowered his box of water and food to the girl.
"I-... I think we need to go easy on our rations," Benjamin said to the others. "I-... I mean, we don't know how long we'll be out here."
He hung his head, and looked at the girl in yellow, offering the box to her.
"D-Do you mind if you hold this for a moment? I-... I just need to go do something down." Benjamin said, offering the large, black box full of food and water to the girl.
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Post by Fiery Firefly on Feb 17, 2013 19:28:55 GMT -8
"Hey uh... its not your fault she... I think she was that way before. " she said.
"Don't worry I'm not gonna eat all your food... I'm not in the mood to eat anyway after seeing..." she was surprised she wasn't crying anymore. Lyra presumed she had simply run out of tears
She picked a random bottle and opened it gently and gulped half of it down in one swig. It was strawberry kiwi flavored and it tasted great but all she cared about at the moment was how it soothed her thirst and aching throat. She wanted to drink more but she heeded the boy's advice and put it down.
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lovely corte
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Post by lovely corte on Feb 17, 2013 20:05:11 GMT -8
"I-It's fine, just... let it go." Benjamin said, dismissing the issue as he nodded towards the girl, and placed the box with her gently, having become accustomed to the new found abilities they had been gifted.
He realized that maybe strength was one of them, but what of the others? What was the point of the scabbing? Or was that a byproduct of the implement that had given them these abilities?
He walked back to the pink pod, towards the girl that he had left behind. He had felt the pain in his feet turn to numbing ache, and found it easier to march towards the girl than before.
He looked at the lid of the pod, pink and bright, and the corpse of Rose. He wondered whether he could bury her, at least in some way or another. He couldn't dig into the ground, for it was too hard, and his hands hurt enough as it is.
He looked towards the plateau, and the overcast of shade it offered from its height. Maybe he could bury her using rocks, pile them over and over, but felt that he wasn't sure how to do so.
He placed his hands on the rim of the pod, before he decided that the best part to do so was to just place the lid back on the pod, the locking mechanism slightly broken. He patted the lid for a moment, and then walked back. It was a bit odd, really.
One minute he was standing with the others, next minute he was huffing over a strange girl he had never met before whom they had all invented a name for, and the next he was back with Lyra.
"I-... I think we need to bury her." Benjamin said.
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Post by Penny Royals on Feb 17, 2013 20:11:14 GMT -8
"Stark," Ran said, ignoring the older boy who called himself White, smiling at Z. "Ryan Stark."
It was then that he looked back at Ben, and after a few seconds, nodded.
"We could start digging soon... we could try to find something to use, but I think it might be useless..." He gave a wry smile. "Besides, I guess we can all handle a little more pain."
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Post by Fiery Firefly on Feb 17, 2013 20:18:51 GMT -8
"Can we really dig a grave with our hands?" Lyra asked. "Don't graves have to be like... 6 feet? We'd get stuck down there."
But thinking about the girl's mangled body she decided it would be for the best, "Fine... how can I help?" she asked.
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Post by Alastor on Feb 17, 2013 20:18:53 GMT -8
Austin was still in a daze, not really having heard Brian's inquiry, hearing slowly returned as the same fluid that was in his lungs drained as he made his way over to the group that was surrounding the pink girl's coffin, silently in pain as he walked. A very distinct lack of skin would do that to a person after all.
A death? Already? he thought to himself, looking at the girl's coffin and absently . He couldn't really say it was unexpected, though- everything comes with a risk, especially these days.
"Name's Austin, by the way." He said lowly.
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Post by JW% on Feb 17, 2013 21:10:47 GMT -8
"Fine. Call her Rose. Whatever." One made up name would be no better than another Brian figured. "I'm still going to call myself White. She was one of us."
He brushed off any attempt to offer him more bottles. He had his own supply, and he'd practice handling objects until he could open his food and water without destroying it. So, as part of his practice he went up and found the lid for his pod. With a grunt he tried to drive it into the hard packed dry lake bed surface, like an oversized makeshift shovel.
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lovely corte
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Post by lovely corte on Feb 17, 2013 21:12:09 GMT -8
"I was thinking that... maybe, we place her under the shade to rest, and put the pink lid over here." Benjamin said, crossing his arms and scratching his elbows, which felt raw and pulled away scabs. Blood pooled onto the ground, but he was at this point not even caring about the pain. He was beyond that now, having become accustomed to the pain already.
"I just think we should do something, I mean..." Benjamin said, "We might not of known her, but... she's a person, and any person's soul deserves to rest in peace."
He looked at Austin, and held out his bloodied hand.
"Benjamin." He said. "I take it you're... the Green Ranger, I guess. Like the old cartoon."
"She wasn't 'one of us'," He defended, "None of us wanted this. A twelve year old girl's death, and you defend the man whom put her there."
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